looking for a webcam server I came across one called webcam-server,strange as it seems.
before I go to far into it, it does require java and a web server to be installed, I have python installed so I was able to utilize
the web server that is build into it.

I was going to make a package to install this, but due to fact that others may want to add it to there own web server and configure it
to their own liking I won't, it's not that difficult to install from the files just by coping them to their respective folders.
there is plenty of documentation in the readme's on setting it up in a custom way, though I didn't change anything to get it working
other than making a few small scripts to start, stop and run the viewer.

The webcam_server.tar.gz contains all the files extracted from deb packages the web-cam server and lib files for video for Linux converter
which was needed to get my camera to work.

" The preloadable libv4l1 wrapper which adds v4l2 device compatibility to v4l1
applications is called v4l1compat.so. The preloadable libv4l2 wrapper which
adds support for various pixelformats to v4l2 applications is called
v4l2convert.so. "

The start and stop scripts placed in /usr/bin and the viewer script go's into the same folder as the applet.jar, so that a standalone view of the cam can be monitored.

I don't know if there any other dependencies but for java, it worked first time for me using quirk120NOP though I've added quite a number of lib files with other apps, I would say that a webcam should be working with another camera application to be sure

Well I may have got ahead of myself, it appears that it has a problem working over the net, I should have read a bit more about some of the issues it has.

But it looks like I have found a way to make it work without having to use a web server to run the applet, so far it seems to work well, I'm in the process of making a GUI to run the server and viewer as well as a one for the remote client, I'll post again as soon as I have something worth while to try.

Edit:

well I have made a pet package for the server, it all seems to run ok, the next step is to create a client GUI, I don't have any real coding experience so would like some help with it from anyone that is interested.

I've never done anything like this before so I will try to explain the best way I can as to how it works.

When I first started with the server that I downloaded I found that it worked ok locally over the lan, but when getting a friend of mine to see if he would test it for me found that there was no image displayed in his browser, the port that the server runs on is port 8888, so asked him to try that, sure enough a static image was displayed in the browser, so seeing that it was sending to the internet I made a script to run the java applet and edited it for my web address and sent it and a copy of the applet to him, he ran it and what do you know it worked.

So there is no need to run a webserver to serve the java applet, one less thing to worry about, a applet run at the receiving end is all that's needed and it can still be viewed in a web browser as a static image which you can refresh to update and save the image to file.

I've finish the server and Gui to the best of my ability, I'll upload it for testing purposes if any one could give me some feedback on the scripting it would be appreciated, I'll post the code to see if I've made any mistakes.

I'm still playing around with this server, I wrote a small script to capture a image from the server that will copy it to /root/my-documents/webcam_snapshots, then it renames each image with a date stamp, this could be a handy thing, this does not require java so if you have a functioning webcam, this can be use in place of the java viewer, just use it in conjunction with the webcam_server.pet

If you wish to use this remote from the server pc just replace "localhost" with the servers external address and in the router forward port 8888 to the server pc, if your running a firewall in puppy you could have problems, I still haven't worked out how to configure it, so I don't run one.

edit:

Just finished making the pet for a client only GUI for java, this will have to be edited manually to change the server address, it's default is "localhost".

I've done some more research, the server streams a series of ".jpg" files so there is no reason that it can't be viewed in a web page not using a java applet, here is the html code for non java webcam web page viewer.

you can change the refresh rate to suit, it is currently set to "0.1" which is 10 frame a second and it is linked the " localhost:8888 ", to add it to a website change it to point to your server " your webserver address:8888 " , change both references to it in the html.

Just cut and Paste the code into a new blank file and name it what ever you want to call it .html......

Tested this over the internet, found that it refreshs to fast and the browser is erratic, changed " <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0.1"> " to "<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1"> " works fine now, updated code 1refresh a second.

Found yet another way to view a streamed jpg webcam server, using Conky to display it on the desktop.
this one is a bit tricky as most puppy versions have pwidgets which use conky as its engine, this most likely can be incorporated into pwidget if one was inclined to do so, I think there is a widget for displaying images so that could be used.

This uses the webcam image as a background for conky and the conky.conf can be edited so that the text doesn't overlay the image.

The requirements for this are conky with imlib2 support, I used pet packages, conky-imlib2-1.7.2.pet and imlib2-1.4.2.pet located here.

This is similar to the snapshot as it uses wget to retrieve images that are stored in /root/.conky/webcam/images/, this done by the script webcam in /root/.conky/webcam/.

I have had another go at building a user interface for the webcam server, I have changed the way it controls things quite a bit, it now can be viewed using conky as well as java, also added a snapshot .

The Gui is now a gtkdialog3 of a fixed window size and the buttons have mouse over tooltip text, have made it as simple as I can, it may not look exciting but it is functional.

The application directory webcam contains all the files and scripts this include the png icons, as I found that it slowed it down considerably if it was to look else where for them, it opens instantly now wheres before it took up to 5 seconds or more.

I have made it so that it uses a updated conky executable, this works ok on my quirky NOP 1.20 which was using conky 1.6.1and now has the conky executable from the conky-imlib2-1.7.2.pet, also I only used the lib files from the imlib2-1.4.2.pet has this is all that is needed to view images with conky.

Had to add scripts to control conky as I am running two, one for the webcam and the other for on screen system info, I did this creating pid files so that there is no interaction between the two and only one instance of each can be run, this seems to work well, the cam is viewed in a conky movable window instead of embedded into the desktop, the java viewer functions in the same manner.

I don't know how this will effect pwidgets as I don't use them, would say that a pid file would have to control it also, so as not to have any interactions with the other instances of conky.

Added a snapshot button with sound and button to open the "webcam_snapshots" directory, also changed the date time format of the saved image file slightly from what they were to, eg. webcam_2010-12-14_21:12:14.jpg.

I'll upload a pet for it for testing only, it could break conky if pwidgets are being used, there may be some missing dependacies for the webcam-server executable, if it don't run from the menu try typing " webcam_start " in the terminal that should tell what it is missing.

micko, jemimah and I put together a similar widget a while back that used ffmpeg and conky if you need any ideas ... never got around to testing streaming with ffmpeg's udp capabilities though (for realtime mp4 stream broadcasting)

Yes I've been following jemimah's thread, I tried the ucview but I couldn't get to work, it either broke my QuirkyNOP 1.20 or ended up with it running but no image just a black screen, I think it was to do with file version conflicts with dbus.

So I thought I'd have a bash at finding something, that's when I came across webcam-server and thought that would be good enough for my needs, but soon found that it had a issue with it's java applet, it don't like to be served, as far as I can tell it has a java security issue, so it seemed the server side of things are fine, that's when I decided to see what could be done with it.

It looks to be quite versatile and as I already use conky I knew that it could display images which has lead me to where it is now, I'll be removing any java compatibility to try and keep it as small as possible, I don't think another 50 or so megs for java is justified just to view a cam.

I,m going to use pythons simple server to serve a html for it that way no client is needed other than a web browser that can refresh a page.

Thanks for the link, I will still look at realtime video if I can sort the problems that I've been having.

This is the conky only version, I've cleaned up the scripts resized the gui replace the .conky with .webcam removed one Dir and renamed the image Dir to image-cache so as not to be to confusing, restructured the snapshot Dir so now it saves to it as eg. root/my-documents/webcam_snapshots/2010/Dec/18_Sat/webcam_2010-12-18_21:14:17.jpg, that should make it easier to sort.

I trolled the net looking for something that might be better, but there seems to be not much that would make it more usable than it is at the moment, not without making it a massive size, well it works in lupu 5.11 without any problem, just don't install pwidgets or conky from the ppm.

Conky is in the Startup Dir, just remove it if it's not required, .conkyrc is in root, that can be replaced or edited.

The only thing that would make it better is to have a remote server viewer with a list of servers to select from, or being able type in a webcam address, but as I have only just started playing around with scripts it is beyond me at the moment, maybe something for someone else to have a go at.

Thanks for that, I appreciate the thought, I still need to use the cam online as I exchange idea's on other interest with a friend of mine and pictures say a thousand words, I don't need to serve a page to him , he just runs a local html to display the webcam saves running another server, I have yet to let him know of the firefox ipcam addon, that will be handy.

Geoffrey

edit:
" while (true) do ffmpeg -y -r 1 -t 1 -f video4linux2 -s qvga -i /dev/video0 /root/Web-Server/webcam%d.jpg; done "
I have a problem with it, after a while it locks up and cpu usage go's to 100%, I have to kill ffmpeg in the task manager then it continues until it peaks out again.

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